


Always More Escaping to the Forest than Staying in the Closet

by PennamePersona



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Bisexual Ned Chicane, Gay Duck Newton, Gen, Introspection, Nonbinary Duck Newton, Subtle Gender Exploration, The feeling of accepting who you are might be something other people can understand, brief mention of Duck Newton/Original Male Character, very brief implication of past Duck Newton/Ned Chicane
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-06-30
Packaged: 2019-05-31 05:44:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15113012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PennamePersona/pseuds/PennamePersona
Summary: It’s a comforting thought, his insignificance in the grand scheme of the natural world. Duck doesn’t want to be too important or particular.orDuck Newton never wanted to be the Chosen One, but he didn't get much of a say in it. He never really wanted to be a man, either, but that was also out of his hands.





	Always More Escaping to the Forest than Staying in the Closet

**Author's Note:**

> So I've seen people on tumblr claiming Duck as a trans character, and I love that to pieces, of course. I feel like Duck could be nonbinary, in his own sort of way, which is what I've made him in this work. I really like the idea of Duck Newton, not-really-a-man, Chosen One, tired park ranger.
> 
> I have kept male pronouns for Duck throughout this work, since I feel like he wouldn't much care about that, or at least would have so thoroughly convinced himself he doesn't care that it wouldn't be something easy to change, and besides, being nonbinary isn't so cut and dry as always using gender neutral pronouns and being androgynous.

It’s nice enough that his birth name isn’t horribly masculine, Duck supposes, as he takes another drink of his tea. It’s actually a pretty good taste this time, which is unusual for the stuff his mom makes when her friends are over. Older women and their weird health kicks confuse the hell out of him, and their insistence on using his given name gives him a feeling like an awful itch, but on the inside. He doesn’t examine it much, most days, but whenever his mom and her friends are fussing around, it’s hard not to think about it.

 

He doesn’t want to think of anything, today. Not after last night’s visit from that crazy glowing person who keeps insisting he’s got some sort of destiny. Duck Newton has never wanted any kind of destiny. He’s a straight B student with an interest in the outdoors and preservation. He likes old things, and he knows that if he applied himself to his schoolwork, especially history, he could get into some kind of nicer school and get a degree in history and maybe preservation and museum work. Duck could be a curator, if he wanted. He checked the requirements and everything. Could be a librarian, maybe, if he wanted something less fancy.

 

But he doesn’t want any of that. He likes old things, but he likes the footprint that old things leave in nature more. He likes looking at a tree and touching the bark, feeling how alive it still is, how much older it is than him, knowing it’ll keep going long after he’s gone. It’s a comforting thought, his insignificance in the grand scheme of the natural world. Duck doesn’t want to be too important or particular. He wants to take care of old, quiet things and breathe in natural air in the woods.

 

“Hey, mom, I’m gonna head out,” Duck says, draining the last of his tea. “Thanks for the tea.”

 

“Be home before it’s too dark,” His mom calls from the kitchen. It’s only just past noon, but his mom knows him, knows he’ll stay out as long as he can, come back after dinner but before his sister gets to sleep, so he can tell her a quick story before bed.

 

“Will do,” Duck says. “Nice seeing you again, Mrs. Green, Mrs. Kim.”

 

He’s out the door before they can respond, shaking his shoulders to rid himself of that internal itching. He takes a deep breath, filling his lungs completely with the outside air, and heads off to the Monongahela.

 

* * *

 

“Ranger Duck!” A familiar voice cries from behind him, and Duck sighs. 

 

“Yeah, what is it, Ned?” He says, resigned to his fate. 

 

“I was wondering if, perhaps, you might be willing to come to the Cryptonomica tonight,” Ned says, boisterous as ever. “I believe that a man such as yourself and a man such as myself have some things to discuss!”

 

“And what might those things be?” Duck asks tiredly.

 

“Well, I don’t think you’d want me broadcasting these things too loudly, friend Duck,” Ned says, his voice an approximation of quiet. Duck sighs again.

 

“Ned, I don’t know what you’ve been hearing, but I’ve got nothing worth hiding going on,” He says, which is true enough. As far as the town is concerned, Duck Newton is as average as they come, and good for it. The model of a hometown boy grown into a man who chats with his neighbors and does his job, not too loud, but not too awkwardly quiet, either.

 

“Ah, then it seems my information was incorrect!” Ned says, back to loud. “You and that Mr. Peter Wick are merely friends, after all. I’ll inform Mrs. Green that she need not be so concerned next time I visit her establishment!”

 

“Please don’t,” Duck says. “Poor Mrs. Green has enough going on in her life without you bringing your unique gossip in.”

 

“Friend Duck, you wound me!” Ned cries. “I would never stoop to such lowness as petty gossip!”

 

“Yes you would,” Duck says, drily. “And besides that, Ned, the whole town already knows I’m gay, no need for your drama to get dragged into it.”

 

“Really?” Ned asks, sounding the most genuine Duck’s ever heard from him in just that one word.

 

“Yeah,” Duck says, slower. “Kepler ain’t so bad, Ned. Folks around here are pretty accepting of who and how you are, so long as you don’t cause a stir.”

 

“That would explain a few things,” Ned says, mostly to himself, it seems. “Well then, Friend Duck, I’ll disturb you no longer!”

 

“Wait, Ned,” Duck says, already regretting prolonging this conversation. He likes Ned well enough, but talking too him too long is exhausting any day. “Whatever it is you wanted to talk about, it’s...no one’s gonna give you shit about it, alright? I’ll see to that, if I hear anything different.”

 

“Ah,” Ned says, looking some kind of surprised. “Well, Ranger Duck, I appreciate it! Not every town I’ve gone through has been so lucky to have a force as accepting as you!”

 

“Alright, Ned, no problem,” Duck says. “And for the record, you weren’t too quiet about it, anyway. Folks have seen enough of your particular brand of flirtation to know you don’t have much for a gender preference, and while plenty of people here ain’t too fond of you, I can tell you upfront that it’s more because of your cryptid enthusiasm than anything else.”

 

“Good to hear,” Ned says, smiling in a way that Duck could actually believe is relieved. “Well then, friend Duck, I’ll be seeing you!”

 

“See you around,” Duck says, raising a hand to wave goodbye, though Ned’s already turned on his heel to spread trouble in some other part of town.

 

That night, when he’s in the bathroom examining his bright blue roots, wondering if he should take the plunge and re-dye his hair sooner rather than later, he’s struck with a strange sort of thought. What he said to Ned earlier, about the people of Kepler, it was true. People have known Duck’s taste leaned pretty exclusively towards men since he was in high school, and no one's given much of a damn. Duck’d known it was something of a rarity, for people to be so more or less accepting of him, but something still sat a bit wrong with him for a long time. Still seems to sit wrong, and he supposes that this talk with Ned’s what brought it back up.

 

Duck sighs, feeling that he spends most of his time doing so, and decides to head to the library that weekend. Last time he was there, the younger library aide had mentioned something about a newer batch of books about gender and sexuality, how there’d been enough of a call for them to justify buying them, and how nice that was. At the time, Duck’d just nodded, happy enough for it, mostly because of the librarian’s obvious delight, but now…

 

Well. Maybe it’s time to do a bit of reading.

 

* * *

 

“So, Duck,” Aubrey Little says, scooting closer to him on one of the couches in Amnesty Lodge. “Ned says you’re a pretty cool guy.”

 

“Does he, now,” Duck says, already suspicious.

 

“Yeah,” Aubrey grins. “He said that you guys had a pretty  _ cool _ night a while back.”

 

“Alright,” Duck says, a bit more flustered than he’d like to be, heat already rising to his face. “Let’s not, Lady Flame.”

 

Aubrey just laughs, then quiets for a minute or so. She looks more thoughtful than usual.

 

“How come you don’t want anyone to call you anything but Duck?” She asks. “You seem like you like a low profile, and that’s gotta be hard with a name like that.”

 

“Never liked my birth name all that much,” Duck says, comfortable enough around this odd and flamboyant young girl that he thinks might be another good sort like Ned. Different, maybe, but closer to understanding than most folks are, even when they try. “Never felt much like mine. Duck does.”

 

“Oh!” Aubrey says. “I feel like that with Lady Flame. Probably different than it is for you, though.”

 

“How do you mean?” Duck asks, that old itch starting to make itself known.

 

“With me, I like the rebranding of it, sorta.” Aubrey says. “Lady Flame sounds more like me than Aubrey Little. But I’ve noticed how you get when people call you a man, or stuff like that. You look uncomfortable. Not a lot, but I had a friend back in highschool who looked like that, too, sometimes. They liked nicknames a lot, like you.”

 

“That so,” Duck says, tension ebbing out of his chest that he didn’t know he’d been holding. “Well, Lady Flame, you’re more observant than I might’ve guessed.”

 

“I’m going to take that as a compliment!” Aubrey grins, and Duck returns it with his own, smaller smile.

 

* * *

 

Duck Newton never had a reason to want to be special. He’d felt different enough growing up without some kind of destiny hanging over his head, not that he was up for blaming that on anyone in particular. He’d always been just odd enough to notice, even when he preferred to fade into the background, which was most of the time.

 

Duck liked old things, alive before and almost certainly after him, no reason to care much about whether he liked guys or even was a guy. The forest didn’t understand Duck, but then again, the forest didn’t understand anyone. Every human being alive was more or less insignificant to the Monongahela, and Duck never felt more like himself than he did walking through it.

 

But sometimes, Duck thinks, watching Ned and The Lady Flame get all damn excited about the crazy new display in the Cryptonomica, it can be pretty nice to be understood.

**Author's Note:**

> [my tumblr](http://www.pennamepersona.tumblr.com)
> 
> Come talk to me about taz or whatever the hell else, I'm easy enough.


End file.
